SS ''Vyner Brooke'' was a Scottish-built

steamship A steamship, often referred to as a steamer, is a type of steam-powered vessel, typically ocean-faring and seaworthy, that is propelled by one or more steam engines that typically move (turn) propellers or paddlewheels. The first steamships ...

that was both the royal yacht of

Sarawak Sarawak (; ) is a state of Malaysia. The largest among the 13 states, with an area almost equal to that of Peninsular Malaysia, Sarawak is located in northwest Borneo Island, and is bordered by the Malaysian state of Sabah to the northeast, ...

and a merchant ship frequently used between

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...

and Kuching. She was named after the 3rd

Rajah of Sarawak The White Rajahs were a dynastic monarchy of the British Brooke family, who founded and ruled the Raj of Sarawak, located on the north west coast of the island of Borneo, from 1841 to 1946. The first ruler was Briton James Brooke. As a reward f ...

, Sir

Charles Vyner Brooke Vyner, Rajah of Sarawak, GCMG, full name Charles Vyner de Windt Brooke (26 September 1874 – 9 May 1963) was the third and last White Rajah of the Raj of Sarawak. Early life The son of Charles Brooke and his wife Margaret de Windt ( Ranee Ma ...

. At the outbreak of war with Japan the ship was requisitioned by the Royal Navy, armed, and sunk in 1942.

Description

Ship designed by naval architect F.G Ritchie OBE, of Ritchie & Bisset, Singapore.

Ramage & Ferguson Ramage & Ferguson was a Scottish shipbuilder active from 1877 to 1934, who specialised in luxury steam-yachts usually with steel hulls and timber decks. They also made several notable windjammers including the stunning five-masted K� ...

Leith Leith (; gd, Lìte) is a port area in the north of the city of Edinburgh, Scotland, founded at the mouth of the Water of Leith. In 2021, it was ranked by ''Time Out'' as one of the top five neighbourhoods to live in the world. The earliest ...

Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...

's harbour area, built the ship, completing her in February 1928. The launch by Her Highness the Ranee was scheduled for 10 November 1927 at Leith. The ship sailed from Leith for Singapore on 17 April 1928. ''Vyner Brooke'' was flush decked with 'tween decks, all steel sheathed in with six watertight bulkheads. The main deck was as clear as possible of structures for deck passenger use with accommodations forward for crew and aft for stewards, clerks and ship's boys. The refrigeration plant, designed to keep the cold store two degrees below freezing, was located on the main deck. Cabins amidships on the upper deck provided for 44 first-class passengers with a by saloon forward of the cabins. A staircase at the after end of the saloon led to a shade deck and two de luxe cabins and a private sitting room. The ship was equipped with wireless and carried lifeboats, rafts and lifebelts for 650 people and could carry at least 200 deck passengers. She was had six corrugated furnaces with a combined grate area of that heated two single-ended Barclay, Curle & Co. boilers with a combined heating surface of . These fed steam at 180 lb_f/in² to a three-cylinder

triple expansion steam engine A compound steam engine unit is a type of steam engine where steam is expanded in two or more stages. A typical arrangement for a compound engine is that the steam is first expanded in a high-pressure ''(HP)'' cylinder, then having given up he ...

built by Ramage and Ferguson. The engine was rated at 297

NHP Horsepower (hp) is a unit of measurement of power, or the rate at which work is done, usually in reference to the output of engines or motors. There are many different standards and types of horsepower. Two common definitions used today are the ...

and drove twin screws. Cargo was handled by two three ton cranes at each hatch with a heavy, twenty ton derrick.

Royal Navy Requisition

At the beginning of the war in the Pacific ''Vyner Brooke'' was requisitioned by the Royal Navy, painted gray and armed with a four-inch deck gun forward, two Lewis guns aft and depth charges. The ship's Australian and British officers were mostly Malay Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve and had been asked to remain aboard the now HMS ''Vyner Brooke''. The ship's company, under the command of her peacetime captain, Richard E. Borton, was augmented by reservists, some survivors of HMS ''Prince of Wales'' and HMS ''Repulse'' and European and Malay professional sailors.

Sinking and massacre

On 14 February 1942 in

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, while evacuating nurses and wounded servicemen away from

she was bombed by Japanese aircraft and sunk. Some of the survivors who reached

Bangka Island Bangka is an island lying east of Sumatra, Indonesia. It is administered under the province of the Bangka Belitung Islands, being one of its namesakes alongside the smaller island of Belitung across the Gaspar Strait. The 9th largest island in ...

east of

Sumatra Sumatra is one of the Sunda Islands of western Indonesia. It is the largest island that is fully within Indonesian territory, as well as the sixth-largest island in the world at 473,481 km2 (182,812 mi.2), not including adjacent i ...

in the

Dutch East Indies The Dutch East Indies, also known as the Netherlands East Indies ( nl, Nederlands(ch)-Indië; ), was a Dutch colony consisting of what is now Indonesia. It was formed from the nationalised trading posts of the Dutch East India Company, which ...

were massacred by the Imperial Japanese Army. Others were imprisoned in Palembang and Muntok POW camps.

Description

Royal Navy Requisition

Sinking and massacre

References

Further reading